The value of multi-functional urban agriculture in creating sustainable cities

Abstract

China's cities continue to expand rapidly and under severe challenge of sustainable urban development. The Chinese Government has decided to bring agriculture back into the city in a state-controlled way and to re-educate urban residents to enjoy agriculture activities in urban areas. This research explores the Chinese Government’s approach to new urban agriculture in China. It seeks to better understand and evaluate the impacts of multifunctional urban agriculture on sustainable urban development. The work is set within the context of China’s extremely rapid urbanization and concerns about pollution, poor lifestyles and an over-emphasis on manufacturing as the economic driver of growth. This thesis has presented a first attempt to redefine the term ‘urban’ in relation to urban agriculture, extending it to the urban core areas, desakota areas and exurban areas. In this way it suggests a new typology of urban agriculture in China, with a potentially broader range of objectives and possibilities that might normally be associated with the subject or practice. Taking Beijing as the case study city, this study selects 3 of its 16 districts: Chaoyang, Changping and Miyun representing core, desakota and exurban areas. The specific projects in these three districts are totally different, and together they represent the three levels in the model of Chinese new urban agriculture. Each level of model is informed and supported by case study of practical projects. These are: Government fully-owned large projects, Government-supported privately run projects and Folk Custom Villages. Data was collected from direct observation, documentation, archive, physical survey, interviews and questionnaires. This thesis found that the “Chinese” urban agriculture model, through three different types of projects, aims to make people rethink the role of agriculture and see it not simply as something undertaken by others in a rural area, nor as something simply to provide food. Rather, it can be something which enhances the urban experience, improves the urban environment, offers leisure facilities, engages people in traditional culture and provides a diverse range of employment and livelihood activities. A well planned modern agricultural production is required to create an agricultural environment with reasonable spatial layout to reduce pollution and to create aesthetically pleasing and sustainable landscapes. It can help urban agriculture ii integrate into the city system in a more sustainable way by reconnecting urban life and rural culture. This model, therefore, sets urban agriculture in a central role within planned urbanization. In summary, this thesis suggests that this model could become an important strategy for land use planning, urbanization and the sustainable development of Chinese cities, indeed, all cities, in the future. This study will be of interest to those scholars who are seeking to explore the Chinese urban agriculture as an effective method for land use in sustainable urban development.